OntheWilderSide

(excerpt from) Brad Blog
Diebold Admits Audit Logs in ALL Versions of Their Software Fail to Record Ballot Deletions
Guest Blogged by Mitch Trachtenberg, with Brad Friedman / March 17, 2009

Startling admission made during public hearing in CA to consider decertification of the company’s voting and tabulation software…

Even the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions’ (formerly Diebold’s) electronic voting and tabulating systems — used in some 34 states across the nation — fail to record the wholesale deletion of ballots. Even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. That’s the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier’s Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier’s tabulator system, GEMS v. 1.18.19.

An election system’s audit logs are meant to record all activity during the system’s actual counting of ballots, so that later examiners may determine, with certainty, whether any fraudulent or mistaken activity had occurred during the count. Diebold’s software fails to do that, as has recently been discovered by Election Integrity advocates in Humboldt County, CA, and then confirmed by the CA Secretary of State. The flaws, built into the system for more than a decade, are in serious violation of federal voting system certification standards.

The problems may lead to decertification of the company’s voting systems, as well as an examination of voting systems made by other companies to determine if they too may have been able to sneak such violations past both federal and state testers…

Filed under: Ballot issues, election, elections, Electronic Voting, News, politics, US Politics Tagged: | ballots, california, Diebold, Electronic Voting, Premier Election Solutions, voting machines